


The Fear of My Own Hand

by marshmallowcat249



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 13:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6053692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallowcat249/pseuds/marshmallowcat249
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan aquires a rare disease and must battle his own body to keep Phil safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fear of My Own Hand

**Author's Note:**

> The street names and other English names and slang are as accurate as I could make them (I made up the address.). Also, if anything you notice is inaccurate, it's for the sake of the plot.

"Oh my god...I-I'm so sorry, Phil..." 

My hand has struck again. Phil moves to the other side of the couch, covering his eye with his hand. He continued watching the anime that was playing on the television, trying not to make a big deal out of the fact that I just punched him straight in the eye. 

"Dan, it's okay, it wasn't your fault... don't blame yourself." 

I was diagnosed with Alien Hand Syndrome two months ago. I don't want to be reminded of the past two months, but my mind forces me to sometimes because my mind isn't the nicest mind in the world.

♢♢♢

I can feel a twitch. It's going to happen. I need to get to a safer place, I'm going to crack my skull open if I stay in the kitchen. 

I make my way up to my bedroom as quickly and calmly as possible, trying to ward it off as much as possible. I barely make it to my bed before my mind decides to be an arse. 

♢♢♢

"We've got a caucasian male, mid-twenties, barely responsive at 3256 Regent street, we'll on be on our way to the hospital shortly," I heard a man say. My neck was held in a brace, and every muscle in my body ached. I felt exhausted. I remembered hearing someone crying, probably Phil. That was my only guess at the time. 

"Dan... Dan, can you hear me?" I heard the man ask. I just wanted Phil to hold me and tell me everything was okay. I wanted to cuddle with him on the couch and watch a movie with him. I didn't ask for this. 

"Ph-Phil..." it was all I could muster, it was all I wanted to muster. I heard him shuffling over to me. 

"Dan, Dan it's me, I'm right here, they're just gonna take you to the hospital to make sure you're okay, alright?" 

"Ok..." I felt a tear slide down the side of my head. The paramedics tried their best to lift me as gently as they could to put me on the gurney, one of the men gingerly holding my head. 

"W-what happened to me..." I groaned. I knew it was probably a seizure, but it never hurt to ask. 

"You had a seizure, Dan, we're going to take you to the hospital and let the doctors make sure there's no brain damage. Phil said he heard you hit your head on something."

I stayed quiet, lying as still as possible on the gurney. With all of the sore muscles and the tiredness, it took a lot of effort to talk. 

While we were in the ambulance, Phil stroked my hair and sang softly. I don't remember what he sang, but I remember it being beautiful, making the situation not entirely bad. He made it seem like there was hope. 

I also don't recollect much of me getting into the hospital, but I remember that a lot of people had to be called in to move me from the gurney to the hospital bed. And after that, the doctors connected me to so many different machines, I wouldn't be able to count them all on my fingers. A nurse took three tries before finally being satisfied with my IV, and a large male nurse put a big oxygen mask over my face. I remember seeing Phil in my peripheral vision, crying and sitting in a chair in the corner. 

After about an hour of doctors and nurses messing with me, they all left to give me some rest. I could still hear him weeping softly.

"Phil..." 

"Yeah, Dan?" He jumped up from his chair and shuffled to the right side of my bed, his face hovering over mine. 

"I'm scared..." it was all I really could say at that point. I was terrified. If the seizure was bad enough that they had to bring me to the hospital, then there must have been something wrong. 

Phil nodded. "I know Dan, I am too, to be honest. But we can try and be brave together," he reassured.

"Ok..." I responded. I felt a tear slide down the side of my face, but Phil wiped it away before it reached my hair. I fell asleep eventually in a haze of morphine. 

♢♢♢

Nothing had changed when I woke up. I tried turning my head to the side to try and look at Phil, but a sharp pain in my neck prevented me from doing so. I groaned, turning my head back to face the ceiling. I heard shuffling, followed by footsteps, and Phil's face appeared in my line of sight, feeling a small smile forming on my lips. 

"Yeah, don't move your head so much, Dan. The paramedic said you bruised your neck badly when you fell off your bed," He remarked.

"How did I fall off of the bed?" I questioned. Looking back, I don't really remember exactly what happened that day. 

"It was a really bad seizure, Dan." Phil answered. I could see the sadness in his eyes. He didn't have to fake it for me, I already knew how he felt. 

"Oh..." I trailed off, not really wanting to talk anymore. 

A while later, the doctor walked in. I remember him being very tall, about an inch taller than Phil. 

"Hello, Dan, how are you feeling?" 

"Ok for right now," I answered. 

"Well, I have something to talk about with you. You received your diagnosis of epilepsy in 2014, correct?" 

"Right..." I confirmed. Phil looked at the doctor with concern. 

"Well, it seems that the progression of your disease has worsened immensely. If we hadn't kept you on these anticonvulsants all night, you probably would've had another seizure. One that could have caused a lot more mental damage than the one you had at home."

"So does that mean he'll have to keep his IV in for the rest of his life?" Phil asked. 

"Oh, goodness no. We have options, here. It just depends on what you want to do." 

"Well, get on with explaining them, then!" Phil shouts. 

"Phil, calm down. Please," I begged. I didn't want him to be kicked out of my room just because he lost his temper. Phil took in a breath and nodded. 

"Ok. So you have two options. You could have surgery, or you can keep taking medicines for the rest of your life, but your epilepsy would be completely under control. And 'under control' does not mean cured. But please take into account that the surgery is very complicated and invasive, and above all else, extremely risky." 

"What would you do in the surgery?" Phil questioned. I didn't know why he was being so overprotective all of a sudden. Granted, I was in the hospital, but I could still think and talk, I wasn't completely helpless.

"We'd be separating the two hemispheres of Dan's brain. There's a certain connection between them called the corpus callosum, and all of the epileptic connections run through there. By severing it surgically, we can reduce the amount or possibly even eliminate the chance of Dan having more seizures in the future," he explained. 

It sounded like a great idea at the time.

"I want the surgery," I blurted out, not thinking about the dangerous aspect of having a hole drilled into my head. 

"Dan, I'm going to give you a while to think about this and discuss it with Phil. It isn't an emergency situation. I'll be back tomorrow," he said before exiting my room. 

"Please, Dan, think about this. Why don't you just take the meds?" 

Apparently he wanted to take the easy way out. I guess he didn't realize that I was on morphine at the time, and I thought I could get up and ride a motorcycle out of the hospital I was so out of it. 

"Because I don't want these seizures anymore. There's still a chance I could have them again, even if I take the meds." 

"But there's still a chance you could still have seizures after the surgery," he said in a frustrated tone. He moved the chair closer to my bed and sat down, his hair falling in his face. 

"I'm choosing the surgery, Phil. They wouldn't offer it if there wasn't a good chance for it to work," I said. 

He sighed. "Ok, whatever makes you happy," he said. Phil played with his fingers and looked at the various machines connected to me. 

Phil only let me have my phone for two hours, so I spent them tweeting and responding to questions people had sent me. He said that I needed to rest, which I thought was a load of bullshit. I felt fine. But I didn't try and fight him. He had enough stress as it was. After Phil took my phone away again, he kissed my forehead and laid down on the bench that was on the other side of the room. I had too many wires and tubes draped over the bed for him to be able to sleep next to me. He'd mess them up eventually. But him just being in the same room was good enough for me. 

♢♢♢

I felt myself being shaken slightly as my eyes focused on Phil's face directly in front of me. 

"Hey, sleepyhead," Phil said lightly. "The doctor wants to know if you still want the surgery." 

"Uh, yeah, I still want it," I responded. 

"Ok, I'll just put you on the schedule then. If we get lucky, the earliest time we have is tomorrow evening," the doctor said. 

"That's fine," I said. Honestly, it could have been two weeks from then and I wouldn't have cared. I had a 24/7 supply of morphine, so I was perfectly fine. I seemed scared of nothing. Like nothing bad could happen. I had Phil with me. 

But when the time came, I was absolutely terrified. Because it was brain surgery, they needed to shave my hair beforehand. This was probably the most traumatic thing that happened before my surgery.

"Do you absolutely have to?" I asked. I had spent the previous two years trimming and growing out my hair to be just right. I wasn't exactly keen on cutting it all off and throwing all of my effort into the trash. 

"We don't want the incisions becoming infected. So, yes," the doctor said. I sighed and nodded,, giving them approval.

It's a small sacrifice to make for my health and quality of life. That's what I repeated in my head for the next thirty minutes while they shaved all of my hair off. I absolutely hated it. Zero out of ten, would never do it again. I didn't touch my head, and did my best to distract myself. 

So I took a selfie with my bald head and posted it online for the whole world to see.

It didn't distract me from the fact that all of my hair was gone, but they made me feel better. Various types of sad/crying emojis were sent to me, along with 'get well soon!' from just about everybody. Phil had been explaining what's been going on everyday on twitter, making sure they knew I was okay. It was so amazing that they cared so much. To this day, I still recieve the occasional Tumblr ask, asking how I've been. For the next three hours, Phil let me have my phone because he knew it would keep me happy and distracted until my surgery. 

People all over YouTube had been making videos all week about me and my situation, and how they hoped I would get better. I commented on as many videos as I could. 

I don't remember much about being taken into the operating room or being anesthetized, as the anesthesia itself took away most of those memories. But I do remember having a very sore spot on my head, and being yelled at by a sassy nurse when I tried to touch it afterwards when I woke up. 

They kept me in the hospital for a couple more days, just to make sure they didn't screw up. Phil went back to our flat and brought back my laptop so I could catch up on answering people's questions on every social media site I was registered to. I watched more videos directed at me, and I also answered tweets and Tumblr asks. Phil eventually took it away from me again when he realized I had been staring at my screen for six hours straight. 

When I was released, I was given a five page packet of paper telling me how I should treat the hole in my head, along with how to cope with having a large hole in my head. I was also given three different types of pain medication, each taken depending on the level of pain. 

For the next three weeks, Phil was hesitant to let me do anything. He wouldn't let me cook, clean, play video games for ten hours straight, or scroll through tumblr for an even greater amount of time. It was horrible. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know he wants me to be safe, but he was going a little crazy. He even got paranoid when I dropped a fork on the ground and bent over to pick it up. 

The next thing I remember was probably the worst experience of my life. I was walking into the kitchen during dinner to grab a knife (I was going to use it to spread butter on my dinner roll), and Phil realized he had run out of milk to drink, so he followed me. When I grabbed the knife, my right hand went haywire and stabbed Phil in the arm. All I remember was seeing blood and hearing his scream of agony. 

It wasn't until we got to the hospital that we realized something was wrong. I would never stab Phil, not on purpose. I've wanted to before, but I could never stay mad at him long enough to actually follow through with the fantasy. 

"Dear god, how did the knife get that deep? They really jammed it in there," the nurse said in surprise. 

"D-Dan..." I remember Phil starting to cry, and rejecting me when I tried to wipe his tears away. That's what hurt the most. Your boyfriend not letting you confort them when they really needed you. He didn't make me leave the room, but he didn't want me near him. 

Luckily my hand had stabbed him in between the bones of his arms, so he didn't need a cast. Just stitches on both sides of his arm and strict instructions to not move it too much until it healed. 

That's when the doctor started playing detective. I was the only one in the house with him when he got stabbed, so he knew I did it. But after telling him over and over and over again that I wasn't controlling my hand and that I had no reason to hurt him, he started putting puzzle pieces together. He stared at my shaved head and the scar running across the top of it as well.

"D-did you just have brain surgery?" 

"Yeah..." I answer. His eyebrows raise, looking intrigued.

"What did they do?" He asked.

"I don't really remember what the doctor said word for word, but I know he said something about separating the sides of my brain, and how it could cure my epilepsy," I say. 

His face lit up, seeming as if he knew what went wrong. 

"I think I know what's going on here. Sit down," he commanded. I pulled up a chair next to Phil's hospital bed, holding his uninjured hand. He doesn't respond to my touch, but he didn't reject it, either. I look up at his face, noticing it to be much paler than usual. 

"I think this whole incident was a side effect," he started. 

"What??" Phil exclaimed. 

"Hear me out, guys. Really. The side effects of uh, what's your name?" He asked, pointing at me. 

"Dan. I'm his boyfriend." 

"Well, Dan, after having a surgery like yours, there are illnesses that can occur as a result. One of these is developing speech abnormalities, and the other is called Alien Hand Syndrome. Your hand moves independently, as if it has a mind of its own," he explains. 

All I did was drop my jaw in shock. Phil removed his hand from my grasp. I looked at him disappointedly, and he stared back in fear. I could tell he was trying to hide it, but I saw right through him. 

The doctor waited a few moments before speaking again. 

"There are treatments for it, but there is no cure. You'll have to find a way to control it. Otherwise, your hand will become capable of doing more complicated tasks." 

"Ok..." Is all I remember answering. After we got home, he was very cautious around me. My hand had never touched him without permission from that day, forward. 

♢♢♢

"Dan... Dan!!" I hear, Phil snapping his fingers in my face. 

"Huh, what? Oh! Sorry... I kind of zoned out for a bit. Did I miss anything?" 

"Oh, uh, no, you didn't. It's okay," he assures. 

I nod. My left hand runs through my short hair. It's grown more than I expected in the past two months. My right hand reaches up and starts pulling on a large clump of hair. I quickly raise my left hand and smack my alien hand until it stops pulling. Phil raises his left foot and sets it in my lap. I smile, knowing that he's here and won't let my hand try to kill me. Believe me, it's scary as hell when it happens. 

After watching six more episodes of anime, Phil gets up and starts walking up the stairs. I follow his footsteps and yawn. Even from behind he's adorable. It's hard to believe he's stuck with me after all of the shit we've been through. 

But when we crawl under the blankets together, I realize it's going to be one of those nights again. Every once and a while, my brain will decide that it doesn't need sleep. I lie awake in bed, watching Phil sleep, hoping that maybe I'll be able to fall asleep eventually. 

Three hours later, and nothing has changed. I'm not going to take out any kind of technology, no matter how bored I may be. I just want to sleep. Scrolling on Tumblr will not help with that. 

I see my right hand twitch. I stare at it, hoping that I can just somehow take control over it. It starts to move across my chest, my heart rate starting to quicken. No. I can't let it do anything now. It'll just hurt someone. Someone like Phil. As calmly as I can, I get out of bed and run down the stairs. My hand creeps up my neck, feeling the rapid pulse there. I use my left hand to smack my right, and it falls back to my side, but I still can't move it willingly. I need to get out of here, my hand is going to hurt him if I stay. I grab my wallet and my phone, not necessarily knowing where I'll go. 

I walk out of my apartment, and decide against hailing a taxi. My hand will probably try to strangle the driver, so I start walking. 

♢♢♢

Five hours later, and I reach the edge of the city just as the sun rises. My hand hasn't tried to kill me yet, so I'll consider that a personal achievement. It has picked up random leaves hanging off of low branches, but I have no idea why. It's never done that before. Phil should be waking up soon. He'll probably be worried, but I push the thought aside, worrying more about my hand that could have hurt him if I stayed. 

My right hand drops the leaves it was holding. I stop walking and stare at it, wondering what it was going to do next, if it was going to do anything at all. After standing still for five minutes straight, I start walking again, assuming that it's going to stop moving for a while. Right after I take my first step, my right hand reaches into my back pocket and takes out my phone, but before I can even react, my hand slams the phone against a strong and tough oak tree, and the phone shatters into hundreds of pieces. I don't even know where I am, it's just a forest. Now I have no way to communicate, and my hand is going crazy. 

I keep walking all day, hunger pangs striking every five minutes. I decide to stay in a tree for the night, but I don't let myself get very high up. I don't want to break anything if I fall. I could sleep on the ground, but bugs are creepy and I don't want to cover myself in dirt. 

Thundering sounds roar through the air as the rain starts to pour. Just one more thing added to why my plan is going to shit. I could've gone to a hotel, or gotten on a plane, but no, I had to be an idiot and wander into the forest. Granted, I was panicking, but if I had just stopped for a minute and thought of a decent plan, my situation might not include me being lost in a forest and sleeping in a tree. The leaves keep most of the rain from hitting me, but I'm still not one hundred percent protected.

After an hour of continuous rain, I'm nearly soaked. My hand has calmed down a bit, I should probably start trying to get back home. When I sit up, my right hand forcibly reaches over and slaps me in the face, and the momentum from the slap knocks me out of the tree and into a large mud puddle on the ground. The majority of my body is now covered in mud, sticks, and leaves. I stand up and wipe off as much mud as I can, hoping the rain will wash off the rest. My amount of luck has gone down to negative amounts when I realize it's stopped raining. The mud dries surprisingly quickly, making me look like a homeless person. 

I feel tired, I haven't been awake for this long in a while. I would assume it's been more then twelve hours at the latest since I left. Phil has definitely noticed my absence by now, I wonder how long it will be before he calls the police. 

I keep walking until I see bright lights coming towards me. Headlights. I've been hiking all day. I wave, trying to get their attention. If I have to hitchhike back to town, then so be it. The car pulls over, and a policeman steps out. 

"Lad, what're you doing all the way out here? Where do you live?" 

"L-London, sir, I got lost. My hand broke my phone, I didn't know how to get back, " I explain. 

"Your... hand?" 

"Y-yes sir, I have Alien Hand Syndrome. My hand moves on its own." The policeman stares at my hand intently, observing that it's being relatively calm at the moment. 

"Well, let me drive you back into town. Get you home before it gets too dark, you nutter." 

"Th-thank you so much." I climb into the back of the car slightly offended that he called me a nutter. I was just trying to keep my hand away from my boyfriend. He pulls out his cellphone, texting someone before getting into the driver's seat. 

A good thirty minutes pass before we arrive in front of the building where my flat resides. The sun has just finished setting, and the lights from our flat are the only ones that are lit. 

"Thanks for the lift, officer."

"Wanker," he responds.

I close the car door, mincing towards the building. My damp jacket is still caked with mud, which doesn't protect me from the cold at all. But by the time I've reached the door to my flat, I'm warmed up somewhat decently.

My hand reaches for the doorknob, when I realize that I shouldn't be springing up on him like this. I decide to ring the doorbell, in hopes that he'll answer. 

The heavy thuds from Phil's footsteps become louder as he approaches the door. I probably smell like shit, but I doubt he'll care. But I know one thing is certain, and it's that I need a shower. 

The rickety door opens, and there stands Phil, wearing the same clothes he was wearing when I left. Various stains cover them, but he doesn't seem to notice or care. His face is heavily tear-stained, and he looks like he'd been crying before he answered the door. A large, purple bruise covers his left eye, which is also swollen shut. I caused this. 

"D-Dan?!" he exclaimed. I nod, and he takes a step forward to give me a hug. The damp mud on the jacket makes a disgusting squishing sound against his pajamas, but he hugs me tighter than he has in years. Tears pool in my eyes; I really missed him. He pulls away and tugs at my left arm, leading me inside. He takes my jacket off and throws it on top of the counter. 

"W-Where the hell were you?!" He shouted. "I was worried sick! I had no idea where you were, I looked all over for you yesterday! And look at you, you're drenched and covered in mud! You have a lot of explaining to do, Dan."

I gulp; this is going to be a longer story than I thought it would be. I didn't even think about how I would explain it to him. 

"Well, I left around midnight, wandered outside the city and into the forest, and got lost. This cop drove by, picked me up, and here I am," I say, trying to talk without bursting into tears. 

"BUT WHY?!" He shouts as angrily as he can manage, which isn't very angry in my opinion. He's about as threatening as a feather dipped in unicorn shit, but I appreciate the effort. 

"M-my hand was going crazy, I didn't know what to do... it was going to choke me... I g-guess I just freaked out, it hasn't tried anything like that in a long time..." I don't even attempt to keep my tears in anymore. It's no use. Besides, it isn't the first time he's seen me cry. 

"Hey, Dan, it's okay... I was just scared... I didn't know if you had been kidnapped, or worse." 

I nod, sniffling and wiping my runny nose on my arm. I'm already dirty. Phil picks up his phone and dials a number. 

"Who are you calling?" 

"The police station. I thought you were kidnapped," he states.  
I nod again. He spends about twenty minutes on the phone with them, explaining how another cop drove me home. Hanging up, he stares at my dirty clothes and face. 

"You need a bath. Or a shower, maybe." 

"Shower," I reply. 

He leads me up the stairs to the bathroom, his dirty, dishelved hair shining against the lights. Once he closes the door, he turns the knob, and the water starts to spray out of the shower head. Phil turns around, looking at both of us in the reflection of the mirror. 

"Raise your arms up," he insists.

I slowly lift my arms above my head, after which he slips my shirt off of me. I step out of my shoes and socks, and he lets me take off my own pants and underwear as he undresses as well. As the air begins to humidify and warm up from the shower, the mirror fogs over. 

With Phil already in the shower and holding my hand, I step in and close the glass door behind me. We take our time cleaning each other, not missing a square inch of skin. It feels refreshing, relaxing, even. He washes my hair last, making sure it is clean and rinsed before turning the water off. The old white towels shield our cold bodies as we rush to our separate bedrooms to get dressed. I slip on an old t-shirt and a sweater, with color-coordinating sweatpants. Black is a true reflection of my soul. 

I walk downstairs to the kitchen, seeing as I haven't eaten in two days, and the hunger pangs hurt like hell. I open the fridge and grab the entire packet of turkey, along with lettuce and tomato. I take six slices of wheat bread from the bag sitting on the counter. I'm sure Phil hasn't had any dinner yet. After preparing all three sandwiches, I see Phil prance downstairs in his giraffe onsie. 

"Phil, that's your halloween costume from last year." 

"I know, but it's so warm and soft, and it's even got a hood!" He brags, pulling the hood over his head. 

"Well, I made you a sandwich, in case you were hungry." 

He nods. "I'm starving." 

He sits down at the dining room table starts to eat his sandwich. I sit next to him, leaning on his shoulder as I eat. 

I now realize that I didn't leave out of love. I left out of fear. Fear of my own body and its unpredictability. However, the fear of hurting him was greater than the fear of my own body. So in a way, the act of me leaving was out of love. But it was the fear of my body that made me go so far away. The fear of my own hand.


End file.
